Newcastle United’s Massaido Haidara’s leg is matter of national pride

THE FOOTBALL Association will not punish Wigan Athletic’s Callum McManaman (English) for his dreadful tackle on Newcastle United’s Massaido Haidara (French). The FA are spineless. A footballer’s career is a short one. Any severe injury can end it and make playing painful. Haidara is a young man, and we all hope what damage has been caused to his leg is not serious.

It’s a pity that the linesman, Matthew Wilkes, never saw the incident at the time. The FA says that because he didn’t see the obvious foul, it cannot be revisited.

Over in the Daily Telegraph the foul has become a matter of national pride. Henry Winter writes:

“Note to the Football Association: lying in a hospital bed is a young French lad, who came to this country because he lives for football, because he heard England was the land of opportunity and fair play.”

Massaido Haidara got hit in the leg, but Winter can read his mind and his intentions. What he doesn’t appear to have read is Haidara’s bio. The player signed from Nancy told the BBC:

“I like the club’s ambition to strengthen the whole team so we can improve our league position – that’s what appealed to me.”

“It was the desire of the club to sign me up which was the most important factor.”

Nothing to do with that British sense of fair play, then – which as anyone who watches the uniformly chivalrous English footballers in the Premier League knows is based on sound fact. What-oh, Messers Steven Gerrard, Gareth Bale, Wayne Rooney, Ryan Shawcross, Dan Smith, Alan Shearer, Joey Barton, John Terry…